Bullying, as anyone can tell you, exists everywhere.
As long as there is some sort of power imbalance, whether created by the bully, or circumstances, or environment, there will always be room for bullying to occur.
Unfortunately for most of us, our experiences with bullying (either personally or via second-hand experience) often start in school, when we are at our most vulnerable emotionally and mentally.
Because of this, there are plenty of anti-bullying campaigns in schools that were created by either the school administration itself, concerned individuals, non-profit organisations, or government initiatives.
All in the hopes of reducing bullying instances and helping those who have been bullied.
The problem with all this, sadly, is that none of these efforts will do anything to fix pre-existing bullying problems if the parents of the bullying child refuse to acknowledge that their child is problematic.
This ends up resulting in the bullying child allowed to get away scot-free at home, or even defended by their parent.
So it comes as a breath of fresh air when Ohio father Matt Cox, after learning about his daughter’s second-time bullying offence, decided to do something about it.
10-year-old Kirsten Cox normally hops onto a school bus to travel back and forth between school and home.
This, in itself, is a pretty regular occurrence, and is nothing out of the ordinary.
As plenty of TV shows and movies have popularised and made clear, however, these school bus rides often can be the source of plenty of bullying incidents.
As it turns out, Kirsten had been caught antagonising other students on the bus for the second time, and as a result had received a three-day suspension from riding the public transport.
Kirsten was initially unbothered by this suspension, and once home simply informed her father that he would now have to drive her to school.
Matt Cox, however, saw being driven to school by either car or bus as a form of privilege.
And in his eyes, it was a privilege she clearly felt entitled to at this point, and was now abusing.
On top of that, he was insistent that bullying was unacceptable in his household, and that he had to stop this somehow.
So he came up with a much more creative punishment to ensure that the girl’s lesson would stick.
The next morning, instead of being driven to her school located in the town of Swanton like she anticipated, Kirsten was instead made to walk five miles in 36 degree Fahrenheit temperatures to school.
Throughout the whole journey, Kirsten was accompanied by her father, who drove behind her in his car while making commentary on bullying and entitlement as a lesson.
He then videotaped everything and later uploaded it to Facebook, where to his surprise, it went viral.
Matt Cox later stated that he expects plenty of parents to disagree with this punishment of his, and he was right.
Many have asked whether he had actually sat down to talk to his daughter first to find out the reason behind the bullying, or if she was even falsely accused.
However, plenty of parents have applauded him for ensuring the message sunk in, especially in this day and age where most parents refuse to admit fault in either their parenting or their children.
SEE ALSO: 21-Year-Old Learns Her Fate After Bullying Teen Boy Who Killed Himself